Treasures of the Rare Books and Special Collections Library: Early printed books

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In 1481, in Florence, there was an attempt to print an edition of Dante by
Nicholas Laurentius with copperplate engravings by Baccio Baldini based on
drawings by Botticelli. This is one of the earliest attempts at using a medium
which was not to become really common until the very late sixteenth century.
This work was commissioned by Lorenzo d'Medici, and one hundred engravings
were planned - one for each canto. The first nineteen engravings were made,
but the difficulty of printing them in position - a process which required
two separate impressions through the press - was apparently too great. Only
the first two or three plates were printed on the text page; sixteen or seventeen
others were printed separately and pasted in. The results were poorly executed
and grey and the rest were never engraved.

Botticelli evidently completed 92 of the drawings however over a number of
years; these were published in full in 1887. Nevertheless, the work had great
influence on other editions of Dante in that the style of the illustrations
were widely copied. A notable example is this 1497 edition. The woodcuts
in this work being based on the engravings for the 1481 edition. The text
includes a commentary by Landinus, but also included here is a life of Dante
by the same writer which is the origin of much of our knowledge of the poet.
The book was edited by Piero Figino.